Run
by apeljohn
Summary: "At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them [...] But eventually all that foul brood was stamped out." Short story giving an alternative view on whether this was a good thing.


_Hard ground underfoot, his feet kicking up snow as he scrambled through the forest. Shadows dancing on the snow, cast by the tall trees swaying in the late afternoon sun. The conifers sigh, the beeches and elms whisper in the breeze. Hot blood pounding in his hands and ears. A gust of snowflakes teases his fur as he stops to check behind him._

_Somewhere to his left, a branch snaps._

* * *

His father had died in the Great Battle. With the woodlanders on the ropes, the coldsiders were pressing in for the kill. A scant few metres separated the werewolf corps from the Sons of Adam. Just one more push...

When Aslan led the flank attack, the werewolves were cut off. With the supporting squadron of hags being decimated by arrows, the reserve force of boggles being slaughtered by badgers, and the dwarves predictably fleeing the field, his father called a retreat in an attempt to save at least a handful of his troops - the best and brightest of his entire species.

It worked, to some extent. Almost half the werewolves escaped the field of battle. The remainder were caught between a strike team of large cats on one side and a renegade giant on the other. The limping, blood-soaked soldier who broke the news to his mother and him told them that his father had died fighting to save his friends' lives, and had gone down with lynx blood on his muzzle.

It was a good death, as deaths went. But the war didn't end there.

* * *

_Panting for breath, a cloud of mist forming. A slight uphill slope covered with bushes and low trees to push through; a small stream jumped. The whispers from the trees becoming more menacing as they realise his nature, as they spread word of his presence to those who hunted. A root curling, tripping, knees scraping on rock. Repressed sob of pain and fear as he struggles to his feet and ran on._

_The whinny of a horse from his right._

* * *

Ever since the Creation, Aslan had always displayed a distaste for creatures that challenged or subverted the order of things, and in his absence the woodlanders had become increasingly vindictive towards those of mixed or confused ancestry. As talking animals in a world created for human rule, they had a natural insecurity about their own place in the scheme of things, and they were not hesitant about taking it out on those they deemed their inferiors. The winged horses hunted to the edge of extinction, the tribe of platypi had been wiped out in its entirety, and not even the giant bats were spared.

But their favourite targets were of course those with human blood or appearance. The dryads and naiads were spared their wrath, through familiarity or contempt, but the goblins and boggles, the hags and witches, the giants and dwarves and apes - the coldsiders, as they came to call themselves - were all hunted without mercy.

It was a hundred years since the Good Queen had stepped in to stop the growing ethnic conflict. With a wave of her wand, she had brought an end to the First Purge, that slow genocide that over a period of decades had whittled down the coldsiders' numbers to a pitiful terrified rump. The onset of Eternal Winter had halted the woodlanders in their tracks, bringing an end to the goblin lynchings, the boggle burnings, the hag hunts and of course the werewolf worryings. The coldsiders' numbers had started to rise again as for the first time they knew something like peace.

But the hatred had not died, merely gone underground. With Aslan's return and the death of the Queen, a second Purge had begun. The woodlanders had launched themselves on the coldsiders with the force of a hundred years of frustrated eager bloodlust.

His mother had been one of the first to die. With her den in flames around her, and her two children lying slaughtered at her feet, she had whispered her plan to him - an escape plan for one. While she distracted the woodlanders, he fled through the den's secret back exit. He heard the explosion, the screams of animals in pain, and over it all a strong, furious howl that was choked off in mid-breath.

He didn't cry. There was neither time nor safety for tears.

* * *

_Knees shaking with fatigue. Mouth dry, silver eyes focused on the next tree, the next rock. No stopping, no thinking. Vision narrowed to a point. Cramp cuts his side as blood runs freely from his worn-out paws._

_Behind him, the slow groan of a hunting horn. The taste of despair._

* * *

It was six months on and he still didn't know if any other werewolves had survived that night of knives. He had been so careful, moving only at night, putting distance between himself and his home. But not careful enough - last night an owl had seen him slipping between shadows. Its hoot was a death knell, for now the woodlanders' allies were coming for him.

The woodlanders' behaviour was easily understood. His mother's books and scrolls had taught him of the nature of evil, how creatures love to treat the Other as less than themselves, how purity taboos and tribalism could intertwine until torture and murder became as socially acceptable as slicing off a gangrenous leg. She had taught him to see sin personified not in the snake or the incubus but in the casual bigotry of banal minds.

But it was hard to remember that when pursued by the woodlanders' allies. When they helped cement the power structure of the murderous woodlanders, putting the greatest fanatics - the beavers, the cats - in the positions of greatest authority. When they hunted down and massacred innocent hags or sprites, creatures guilty only of being born into the wrong species. ...And when they were on his trail right now.

Why did they simply accept what the woodlanders told them? Why did they not ask for themselves who their prey was, that it merited destruction? Why could they not hear the cries of pain, the pleas for mercy? Why would they not let him live in...

* * *

_Dark shape silver flicker PAIN..._

* * *

"Good work, chaps," Peter said as he used his foot to push the beast's carcass off his sword. "You scare, I skewer. Worked like a charm."

He noticed Lucy looking a little green as her horse trotted into the clearing. "Don't worry," he said, "it was just a werewolf. Runty one too, no real danger. Frankly I'm amazed it was able to carry out those murders the owl reported."

"I wasn't worried, Peter, I know you can take care of yourself. I'm just still a bit squeamish about all this. You'd think with the battle and all that I'd have got over it, but... well..."

"You still feel a bit sensitive," said Edmund as he arrived from their left. "I quite understand. But it really is necessary, you know. If we let these monsters live, they'll spread like weeds and we'll be back where we started."

"Oh, I know. And it _is_ horrible what he'd done. Maybe we should go find the victims' families and offer them our condolences."

"No need," said Susan as she caught up with the group, "Mr Beaver said he'd take care of that. Oh, well done, Peter. I thought for a moment it had got away."

"Yes, it was a slippery one," said Edmund. "But a bit of planning works wonders. Anyway, let's get moving - if we don't leave now then we won't get back to Caer Paravel in time for dinner. And I need you chaps to try the new ginger beer recipe I've been working on."

"Not another one," sighed Susan. "Last time it took me three days to stop hiccupping."

"I'll have you know that was not my fault. If you will insist on drinking twice your fair share..."

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Their voices faded as they rode off through the trees.

* * *

_Blood-soaked fur blows in the wind. Silver eyes cloud over. Fade to black._

* * *

A/N: The other day I found myself re-reading LWW for the first time since I was a kid. It was enjoyable, but I found myself a bit annoyed by the allegory - CS Lewis was not a subtle man - and by the inconsistencies with the other books. But what absolutely screwed it up for me was this paragraph a few pages from the end:

"These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well, and long and happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest - a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumour of a hag the next. But in the end all that foul brood was stamped out."

Compare and contrast with:

"Most of you know what it means when a hundred corpses are lying side by side, or five hundred, or a thousand. To have stuck it out, and at the same time — apart from exceptions caused by human weakness — to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history, which has never been written and is never to be written... We had the moral right, we had the duty to our people, to destroy this people which wanted to destroy us."

In this case, of course, the speaker was Heinrich Himmler, and he was talking about the Jews. Enough to build a case against Aslan at the Hague? Probably not. Enough to fuel speculation and fanficcing? Definitely.


End file.
